Biology 2483A Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Soil Fertility, Biome, Succulent Plant

• School: Western University
• Department: Biology
• Course: Biology 2483A
• Professor: Hugh Henry

Document Summary

Warm/cold/dry/wet variations on earth organism patterns because of that variation. What the world is made up of biologically. Overview of the diff types of systems in the world and how they relate to the climatic factors in ch. 2. The biosphere is the zone of life on earth found everywhere on earth. Biomes are large-scale biological communities shaped by the physical environment, particularly climate. Biomes are categorized by dominant plant forms in that region - not taxonomic/relatedness: tundra, boreal forest, grassland, ect. Dominant plants are visible, immobile, and occupy sites for a long time: thus, they are good indicators of the physical environment, reflecting climatic conditions and disturbances that have occurred in that biome. Because it can"t move, it must be able to tolerate all the conditions of that site during all times of the year. Terrestrial biomes are characterized by growth forms of the dominant plants, such as leaf deciduousness (shedding leaves) or succulence (ability to hold water - catcus)